


lavender's blue, lavender's green

by thegirl



Series: when i am king, you shall be queen [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ASoIaF Kink Meme, F/M, Fluff, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 01:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4000228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“May I ask why?” Grandfather looks amused again. </p><p>Tommen thinks.</p><p>He knows he could say that when he first saw her he felt she was unbreakable, and at Winterfell before the War, she had shown him how to do handstands and cartwheels. He could say that she never cowered before Joffrey, not like him. He could say that he wants to make her happy again, make her dimples show like they used to before she and her sister lost their wolves. He could say that at balls he hates having to dance with anyone else, even though she steps on his toes, because her hands are cool and rough like no girl’s he’s ever met before, and up close he can see all the different shades of grey in her eyes. </p><p> </p><p>Title from the song: lavender's blue, lavender's green, when I am king, dilly dilly, you shall be queen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lavender's blue, lavender's green

Tommen knows he’s terrible for not being sad about Joff’s death. He tries to wrench the emotions up, thinks about the kittens he found dead in a hallway, all bloody, but then remembers that Joff was the one that cut them out of their mother’s stomach. He tries so hard to be sad, as devastated and broken as mother is, but he just _can’t._

“Your brother was not a good king,” Grandfather tells him over Joff’s corpse, that Tommen cannot stop staring at because he can’t help but think it’s just another one of Joff’s sick jokes, the kind he’s been playing since before Tommen remembers, and he’ll bolt upright and sneer and have all his toenails torn off because Tommen isn’t grief stricken, but he doesn’t, “Your brother was not a wise king. If he were, perhaps he would still be alive.”

Through it all, mother keeps on staring at Joff’s pale face, and Tommen tries so very hard to stop the thought, but it comes anyway: _you are without your favourite now, mother. Look what your devotion has gotten you. A corpse and a broken kingdom._

On the day of his coronation, when Joff’s crown that makes him feel dirty even though he knows that it has been polished, cleaned and scrubbed since the wedding, he can see Margaery Tyrell trying to make eye contact, but grandfather told him that she would want to marry him and manipulate him because he was young, and they should not allow that to happen.

She would be married to a cousin in Lannisport, Grandfather says, because he deserves a fresh start but she would stay at court as the treaty needed to be maintained until Stannis was dealt with - Tommen remembers the stern, thin haired man from his childhood vaguely, but he remembers more fondly his cousin Shireen who mother says he shouldn’t play with, but he did anyway.

“The Tyrells want to run your kingdom through her, because they think you are young and impressionable and will fall over at a girl showing you any attention. But you won’t, will you?”

“I’m fifteen, I’m not _stupid.”_ He says to that, and he thinks that grandfather almost smiled, but of course grandfather doesn’t smile, but he does make a little huffing noise that Tommen decides is a laugh later that night, after much deliberation.

“No,” Grandfather says in response, a queer light in his green eyes that Tommen doesn’t recognise, “You’re not are, you?”

Tommen bites his lip, and brings up what he’s been thinking about every spare moment since he was pronounced King Tommen of the House Baratheon, First of His Name. “What if I want to marry... someone else?”

Grandfather looks pensive at that “Who do you have in mind?”

When Tommen opens his mouth to deny choosing anyone in particular without thinking, Grandfather does actually let out a bark of laughter, and if they were not the only ones in the room, Tommen would be convinced it was someone else. It sounds misused, not kind, but not cruel either.

“You have someone in mind, I know.” Tywin says “I remember when I was the same.”

“With Grandmother Joanna?” Tommen asks, unable to imagine Grandfather feeling the same way he does. He feels sick and light half the time and warm the rest. Sometimes when he thinks too hard, his heart hurts in his chest.

Grandfather’s small smile dies at the sound of his late wife’s name.

“I’m sorry,” Tommen blurts.

“No, no,” Tywin waves him off “Yes... with Joanna. The first time I saw her, I knew that I wanted to marry her, I wanted to make her mine. I wanted to protect her. Is that how you feel about this girl?”

Tommen nods “That’s- that’s exactly how I feel, but I mean, I don’t think she needs me to protect her-”

“Who?” Grandfather asks again, straight to the point after being diverted “I should warn you, if she is not from a prominent house that could give us strategic advancement then it would not be possible.”

“Arya,” Tommen says. Even saying her name makes his mouth dry. “Arya of House Stark.”

Grandfather’s eyebrows raise to the top of his forehead, before settling back down at their proper height.

“Arya Stark.” He says flatly, as if testing Tommen on his resolve.

“Arya Stark.” Tommen replies, trying to sound sure, because he is, surer than he’s ever been before in his life.

“The grubby girl that chases cats. The girl that plays with swords. That girl?”

“Yes.” Tommen sounds surer this time, his voice even.

“May I ask _why?”_ Grandfather looks amused again.

“Now that Lady Sansa has disappeared and she and uncle Tyrion never consummated the marriage, Arya is the only remaining heir to Winterfell and the entire North, our second son could take the name Stark and give us complete control over half the realm, which is currently out of our reach, and she has an impeccable bloodline linking her to the Riverlands and the Tullys-”

“No, no,” Grandfather interrupts. “I am impressed you have researched what this will do for us politically, you are correct in that way it is a fine match. But why would you want to spend your entire life with a waif of a girl with very few accomplishments, who seems more like a wild animal than a lady of court? The sister of the girl who is accused by your mother of murdering your brother?”

Tommen thinks.

He knows he could say that when he first saw her he felt she was unbreakable, and at Winterfell before the War, she had shown him how to do handstands and cartwheels. He could say that she never cowered before Joffrey, not like him. He could say that he wants to make her happy again, make her dimples show like they used to before she and her sister lost their wolves. He could say that at balls he hates having to dance with anyone else, even though she steps on his toes, because her hands are cool and rough like no girl’s he’s ever met before, and up close he can see all the different shades of grey in her eyes. He could say that he wants to keep her safe from anyone who would try to change her, treat her like there’s anything wrong with her, because he thinks she’s perfect. He could say that he likes the way she calls him more rude words than he’s even heard from the Hound, and once he found her in a corridor crying her eyes out after Joffrey killed her father, and he sat with her even as she beat him with her fists and cursed everything about him, and then at the end she hugged him. He could say that he thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen with a sword in her hand, and he couldn’t bear another dirty thing inherited from Joffrey like the crown and the chambers, not a wife.

“Because I don’t want to be king if she’s not queen,” Tommen tells Grandfather, and hopes it is enough because he’s never been very good with words.

“Well then,” Grandfather says after a moment of deliberation, “Go tell your betrothed the good news. I will send out ravens, though most of the nobles are already in the city.”

.

Arya’s chambers are in the Maidenvault, and they had been joined to her sister’s but Sansa ran from the wedding, so technically now she has both, more room than anyone could ever need - but Tommen’s new chambers are double the size of that, so he’s not one to talk.

“The King!” The guard announces and from inside Tommen hears a crash, a harried shout of ‘coming!’ before the solid oak door swings open.

He’s taller than her now by a whole head, but he remembers when she was two inches taller at Winterfell. It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like a lifetime to Tommen.

“Come in,” she mumbles, doing one of her wobbly curtseys that haven’t improved since Winterfell when mother had snarked to Joff ‘Is _that_ what passes for a lady in these parts of Westeros?’

Tommen feels suddenly bashful, and knows his cheeks will be flaming red by the way his face heats, but he steps in anyway. As usual, all her windows are wide open, and she is in the thinnest dress she can wear for it still to be decent, and the sleeves are pushed up to her elbows. She never had adjusted to the climate in the South.

“My lady,” he begins, but then realizes she might not be pleased he hadn’t asked her to marry him before being told they were to marry.

“I-” he takes off his cloak, and looks at her in askance before throwing it over her bed.

“Tommen, I’m really tired-” she begins. Tommen knows she’s been saying this to everyone ever since Sansa fled without her. He looks into her eyes, steel grey like a cloud on a rainy day, and is relieved to see the spark is still there.

“I have to something important to ask.” he carries on, and by the widening of her eyes he knows she’s shocked. Usually she does all the talking, and he never interrupts, but this is important, he thinks, important enough to do so.

Her eyes widen even further as he gets down on one knee.

“Tommen,” she says again, “Tommen, what are you-”

“Lady Arya,” he says loudly, and she takes the cue to fall silent “I have come to ask whether you would do me the honour of becoming my wife and queen.”

He had been so afraid he’d stutter like he did when he was little, but he makes it through without a single mistake.

Arya’s mouth opens and closes like a fish’s. “I,” she says at last “I thought you were marrying Margaery Tyrell.”

“No,” Tommen says “I don’t want her. I want- I want you.”

“Why?” she breathes, pushing her hair out of her eyes and her hand is shaking like mad. “Why me, of all people? If it’s for my claim Sansa is still alive so I’m not the heir-”

“It’s not for your claim,” Tommen says quickly. His knee is starting to ache, but he stays down. “It’s- it’s for you. I- I want, I mean, I think we, I think, I love-”

“Alright.”

Her voice is louder than before. Tommen rises awkwardly, his leg slightly dead.

“Alright?” he repeats, and he can feel a smile beginning to crack over his face as his mind processes her reply.

“Alright.” she nods.

They stand hesitantly, a foot between them before Tommen reaches out and takes her hands in his - so much smaller than his own. “Thank you,” he says, kissing them.

“No problem,” she says, faintly.

.

They get married quickly, as all the wedding guests are already in the capital, and Arya’s gown is mostly plain, white thread on white fabric depicting direwolves racing over her sleeves and on the hem. She has more skirts than he can count, and her hair is loose around her shoulders. Tommen can’t help but think how different she looks from Margaery as a bride - Margaery who is sitting in the front row with a pinched face, next to her new Lannister husband, watching another woman become queen. Grandfather nods from the front pew, whilst mother’s face is completely blank, like she doesn’t know where she is.

“Father.” he and Arya begin together, and he is pleased she sounds as confident as he does. Their eyes meet as they speak, and her pupils are dilated so large he can see his own face reflected in them, “Smith. Warrior. Mother. Maiden. Crone. Stranger.”

They both pause then, and then Tommen starts before she does by a millisecond “I am hers and she is mine-”

“I am his and he is mine-”

“From this day,” they come together again, voices echoing around the Great Sept “Until my last day.”

The applause is like a roar from all around, but it fades from Tommen’s hearing as he kisses his new wife for the first time - her lips chapped but soft, pushing back against his own for the briefest moment before they pull away.

.

“Are you afraid?” Arya asks from the bed, as naked as her nameday. Tommen feels his breathing shorten as he looks at her, long white arms wrapped around her long legs, her knees scarred and bruised like her elbows, her breasts small and pert on her thin frame and dark, curly hairs a stark contrast to the white skin of her belly.

“Are you?” Tommen replies.

“I don’t think so,” she says, shrugging, trying to give off an air of nonchalance and instead going too fast, betraying her nervousness “I don’t think you’ll hurt me.”

“I won’t,” Tommen says empathetically “I promise, I won’t.”

Her eyes drift up and down his body, before coming back to his face.

“I believe you.”

Tommen walks over slowly to the bed and sits next to her, trying not to startle her. Slowly, their bodies slump together and their hands tangle on top of the sheets.

“Your brother said he would marry me to an Iron Islander.” she says quietly after a few minutes “He said he’d marry me to the worst man he could find, one that would rape me so hard every night I couldn’t run around with my sword anymore, and nobody would come to save me.”

She looks up at him then, and her eyes are like flint, hard and sharp.

“I was afraid then. I am not afraid now.”

And slowly, so slowly she guides his hand to her breast, which fits comfortably in his palm.

“You make me feel afraid, I’ll kill you myself.” she breathes in his ear, suddenly so close that her lips brush the side of his head.

Tommen knows that shouldn’t make him want to kiss her so hard neither of them can breathe, but it does. So, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave reviews and kudos if you enjoyed reading, and let me know if you want a series made about King Tommen and Queen Arya :)


End file.
